The year and a half long protest movement of the majority Shi’ite people of Bahrain could be forewarning of a crippling migraine headache for the USA if it succeeds in overthrowing the western installed Al Khalifah dictatorship that has ruled Bahrain since “independence”.

The people of Bahrain know all to well that the Khalifah regime’s real godfather is the USA and it is more than likely that the end of the regime will be followed by a demand to close the American naval base located in Bahrain thus threatening US control of the strategically critical Persian Gulf.

Control of the Persian Gulf energy exports and energy reserves is essential for Pax Americana’s continued worldwide hegemony and the US navy spearheaded by the aircraft carrier task force necessary to enforce it’s domination of the Persian Gulf requires a port to operate from. If the USA is kicked out of Bahrain they have only the tiny nation of Djibouti thousands of miles away in the Horn of Africa and its small port as a fall back position.

Ordinarily the USA would give the green light for the Saudi and Emirati funded mercenary police force (hired gun thugs from Jordan, Pakistan and Yemen) occupying Bahrain to drown the potential revolution in blood as has been all to common in the regions past but the situation in Bahrain is complicated by the close historic tribal and family ties between the Shi’ites in Bahrain and the Shi’ites in eastern Saudi where almost all of the Saudi oil is located.

Every time the crackdown on the Bahraini people is intensified there has been an increase in protests by the Shi’ite of Saudi Arabia. A major bloodbath in Bahrain could well ignite an explosion amongst the Saudi Shi’ite who have long suffered from what might best be described as Arab Apartheid by the Wahabi Sunni extremist Al Saud regime that the British installed in power in Saudi Arabia many decades ago.

If the Shi’ite in Saudi Arabia rise up they could easily sabotage Saudi oil production, the worlds largest, damage if not cripple some of the biggest economies in the world and leave the USA scrambling to find a way out of an increasingly dire situation.

For the USA the Bahraini protests could become a major problem that could result in Pax Americana being seen as weak, feeble really, unable to control the Persian Gulf in the face of the growing influence of Iran in the region and calling into question the USA’s very ability to militarily punish its enemies and control one of the worlds most critical choke points, the Straits of Hormuz where the Persian Gulf meets the Indian Ocean.

Today’s headache could quickly turn into tomorrows migraine for the USA as the Bahraini people are faced with the choice of continuing the one sided violence they are suffering or taking up arms in self defense.

The sad reality is political power grows from the barrel of a gun and the guns are all on the side of the oppressors in Bahrain, though this could change.

How much longer the people of Bahrain, especially their youth, will tolerate the present situation remains to be seen though many are wondering why the leadership in Iran, of which Bahrain was once a province, have yet to provide them with the means to start to defend themselves.

From armed self defense to armed struggle to liberate themselves from a brutal foreign backed dictatorship is almost an inevitable progression though such actions may very well light the fuse of an explosion in eastern Saudi Arabia that could spread further in the region’s Shi’ite belt which stretches from Yemen all the way to the Mediterranean Sea and may explain why the Iranian leadership is being so cautious in helping arm the Bahraini people.

Thomas C. Mountain is the most widely distributed independent journalist in Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. His interviews can be seen on RTTV and PressTV. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com.